A handle for a guide wire for stiffening the guide wire and releasably retaining the guide wire in the stiffened condition.
In U.S. Pat. No. 3,847,140 to Ayella there is disclosed a spring guide handle that includes a carriage slidably mounted on a support assembly, the carriage and support assembly having slots for receiving the proximal ends of the core wire and coil spring respectively. The handle can be held and operated with one hand to manipulate the spring guide tip.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,552,384 to Pierce et al discloses a handle for a flexible controllable tip guide and includes mechanism for bending the tip and locking the tip in selected adjusted conditions. U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,945 to Kramann et al discloses a handle operable between a first position that the J-portion of a guide wire protrudes from a catheter and a second stop position the J-portion is within the catheter.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,600,014 to Beraha discloses a biopsy needle that has a handle having a recess in the main body portion with a thumb tab in the recess and connected to a cannula for moving the cannula, a catch tab connected to the knob for releasably retaining it in a position that a stylet is retracted, a spring to urge the thumb tab to move the cannula to the cannula extended position and a spring urged latch for releasably retaining the thumb tab in the cannula retracted position.
Various other U.S. Patents disclosing apparatus for manipulating the bending of guide wires and/or catheters include Nos. 3,416,531 to Edwards, 3,452,740 to Muller, 3,521,620 to Cook, and 4,456,017 to Miles while U.S. Pat. No. 3,854,473 to Matsuo discloses a stylet for varying the flexibility of an endoscope and retaining the endoscope in various selected degrees of flexibility.
In order to make improvements in apparatus of the above general nature this invention has been made.